Sure, but again, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the rhetoric of freedom. It dilutes the message, and it's needlessly antagonistic. It alienates people like me who don't think the model of getting paid for what you build is a bad thing.

And of course, his scorched-earth, perfect-or-nothing style of morality doesn't help - open source should, even to RMS, be a lot better than Windows, but he never acknowledges it. When you have little enough public support to begin with, focusing on the things that separate you from potential allies isn't a good way to do business.

Of course, I'm not anywhere near as successful or accomplished as RMS, and probably never will be, so maybe I shouldn't tell him how to do his job. Maybe he just doesn't give a shit if anything actually changes, so long as he stays pure, and if that's what he needs to sleep at night, then fine. But that doesn't make it look any less counterproductive from where I'm sitting.